Eat-Less Activity

Both aerobic and resistance exercise suppress appetite temporarily, but the effect lasts longer after an aerobic workout, research suggests. David Stensel, senior lecturer in exercise physiology at Loughborough University in England, and his colleagues found that running on a treadmill for 60 minutes and lifting weights for 90 minutes both reduced perceived hunger (compared with resting) for up to an hour afterward—but only running increased levels of the appetite-suppressing hormone peptide YY and kept them elevated for four hours. Some exercisers have been known to worry that any initial hunger suppression is followed by a compensatory increase in appetite (which could lead to overeating), but "we have not found this to be the case," Stensel says. In a follow-up study, men who ran 90 minutes did not increase their food intake at all over the next 24 hours, compared with when they rested. The findings still need to be confirmed in women, Stensel notes, and the effect needs to be studied over a longer time period. Such research "may lead to a more effective prescription of exercise for weight control," he and his colleagues write.